This invention relates in general to electrical connector assemblies and deals more particularly with an improved modular connector assembly for use in a telephonic and/or data signal transmission system and a method for making such an assembly.
The connector assembly of the present invention is particularly well suited for use as a patch cord on a cross-connect panel, as, for example, an AT&T 110 type panel. Such a cross-connect panel meets EIA/TIA Commercial Building Standards and provides a convenient centralized location for networking the communications and data processing systems within a building and for interconnecting the building systems with an outside telecommunication network.
A typical patch cord for a modem cross-connect panel system of the aforedescribed general type includes an elongated flexible stranded wire cord having a patch plug attached to each of its ends. The patch plug generally has a housing containing an in-line array of flat contact blades adapted to be simultaneously pressed or plugged into and extracted from an equal number of mating insulation displacement contacts (IDCs) mounted on and projecting from the cross-connect panel. Typically the contact blades within the plug housings are connected to individual stranded wire conductors in the patch cord by IDC terminations.
While stranded wire patch cords afford the advantages of flexibility, for ease of cable buildup during panel board installation, and enhance high frequency transmission performance, due to increased pair twisting capability, these advantages do not adequately compensate for the basic incompatibility of IDC technology and stranded wire. Further, the initial concept of mass termination to enhance efficiency by cross-connecting an entire network (four pair), as opposed to terminating individual conductors, is seriously flawed by insertion of eight relatively large flat formed blade contacts at each end of the patch cord into associated IDC slots on a cross-connect panel.
Accordingly, it is the general aim of the present invention to provide a connector assembly having improved plugging electrical contacts for releasable mating engagement with IDCs mounted on a cross-connect panel or the like. It is a further aim of the invention to provide an improved method for making a connector assembly having an in-line array of insulated electrical conductor to contact terminations which are simultaneously formed during connector housing assembly, whereby an improved connector assembly may be produced at a substantially lower cost than presently available connector assemblies of like kind.